Appendix to the Book of the Crossbow and Ancient Projectile Engines

OLIN U 873 .P34 1907ca \ Cornell University Library 'Sd Ih The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924102030891 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 924 1 02 030 891 In compliance with current Copyright law, Cornell University Library produced this replacement volume on paper that meets the ANSI Standard Z39.48-1992 to replace the irreparably deteriorated original. 2006 Huntington Free Library Native American Collection y^i^i i-irwroag^ CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY APPENDIX TO THE BOOK OE AND ANCIENT PROJECTILE ENGINES BY SIR RALPH PAYNE-GALLWEY. BT TWENTY-EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS LONGMANS, GRiE^J, AND GO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW. LONDON NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA ''''',' ' ' '. " . '.'l90,7- All rights reserved APPENDIX TO THE BOOK OF THE CROSSBOW AND ANCIENT PROJECTILE ENGINES BY SIR RALPH PAYNE-GALLWEY. B^ TWENTY-EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA 1907 All rights reserved CONTENTS OF THE APPENDIX THE CATAPULT AND BALISTA PAGE Introductory Notes on Ancient Projectile Engines. 5 The Catapult ........ II The Ballsta. ...... 19 THE TURKISH COMPOSITE BOW Thk Turkish Bow. Construction and Dimensions J The Bow-string ........ 6 The Arrow ........ 7 The Method of Stringing a Turkish, Persian or Indian Bow 9 The Horn Groove .,...,.. II The Thumb-ring ........ 12 Composite Bows of various Oriental Nations 16 The Range of the Turkish Bow 19 A 2 and ancient projectile Since my recent work on the crossbow additional information weapons was issued/ I have obtained of the Greeks and Romans. concerning the catapult and balista a revised in the form of an Appendix, I now, therefore, print, two engines. Their history account of the construction of these already dealt with. and effects in warfare I have fully describing the structure, power I also append a treatise Turkish composite and management of that remarkable weapon the alluded to in my book on the bow, which I only cursorily crossbow etc. R. P. G. Thirkleijv Park, Thirsk : Jan. 1907. 1 The Crossbow, Mediaval ami Modern, Military and Sporting: its Construction, History, and Manaeemcni. With a Treatise on the Balista and Catapult of the Ancients. 220 illustrations. Messrs. Longmans & Co., 39 Paternoster Row, London. INTRODUCTORY NOTES ON ANCIENT PROJECTILE ENGINES Of ancient Greek authors who have left us accounts of these engines. Heron (284-221 B.C.) and Philo (about 200 B.C.) are the most trustworthy. Both these mechanicians give plans and dimensions with an accuracy that enables us to reconstruct the machines, if not with exactitude at any rate with sufficient correctness for practical application. Though in the books of Athensus, Biton, Apollodorus, Diodorus, Procopius, Polybius and Josephus we find incomplete descriptions, these authors, especially Josephus, frequently allude to the effects of the engines in warfare ; and scanty as is the knowledge they impart, it is useful and explanatory when read in conjunction with the writings of Heron and Philo. Among the Roman historians and military engineers, Vitruvius and Ammianus are the best authorities. Vitruvius copied his descriptions from the Greek writers, which shows us that the Romans adopted the engines from the Greeks. Of all the old authors who have described the engines, we have but copies of the original writings. It is, therefore, natural that we should come across many phrases and drawings which are evidently incorrect, as a result of repeated transcription, and which we know to be at fault though we cannot actually prove them to be so. With few exceptions, all the authors named simply present us with their own ideas when they are in doubt respecting the mechanical details and per- formances of the engines they wish to describe. All such spurious information is, of course, more detrimental than helpful to our elucidation of their construction and capabilities. It frequently happens that in a mediaeval picture of one of these machines some important mechanical detail is omitted, or, from the difficulty of portraying it correctly, is purposely concealed by figures of soldiers, an omission that may be supplied by reference to other representations of the same weapon. 6 INTRODUCTORY NOTES of any one of It is, indeed, impossible to find a complete working plan these old weapons, a perfect design being only obtainable by consulting many con- ancient authorities, and, it may be said, piecing together the details of struction they individually give. We have no direct evidence as to when the engines for throwing projectiles were invented. It does not appear that King Shalmaneser II. of Assyria (859-825 b.c.) had any, for none are depicted on the bronze doors of the palace of Baliwat, now in the British Museum, on which his campaigns are represented, though his other weapons of attack and defence are clearly shown. The earliest allusion is the one in the Bible, where we read of Uzziah, who reigned from b.c. 808-9 to b.c. 756-7. ' Uzziah made in Jerusalem engines invented by cunning men, to be on the towers and upon the bulwarks, to shoot arrows and great stones withal.' (2 Chronicles xxvi. 15.) Diodorus tells us that the engines were first seen about 400 B.C., and that when Dionysius of Syracuse organised his great expedition against the Carthaginians (397 B.C.) there was a genius among the experts collected from all over the world, and that this man designed the engines that cast stones and javelins. From the reign of Dionysius and for many subsequent centuries, or till near the close of the fourteenth, projectile-throwing engines are constantly men- tioned by military historians. But it was not till the reign of Philip of Macedon (360-336 b.c.) and that of his son Alexander the Great (336-323 b.c.) that their improvement was care- fully attended to and their value in warfare fully recognised. As before stated, the Romans adopted the engines from the Greeks. Vitruvius and other historians tell us this, and even copy their descriptions of them from the Greek authors, though too often with palpable inaccuracy. To ascertain the power and mechanism of these ancient engines a very close study of all the old authors who wrote about them is essential, with a view to extracting here and there useful facts amid what are generally verbose and confused references. There is no doubt that the engines made and used by the Romans after their conquest of Greece (b.c. 146), in the course of two or three centuries became inferior to the original machines previously constructed by the Greek artificers. Their efficiency chiefly suffered because the art of manufacturing their important parts was gradually neglected and allowed to become lost. INTRODUCTORY NOTES 7 For instance, how to make the skein of sinew that bestowed the very Hfe and existence on every projectile-casting engine of the ancients. The tendons of which the sinew was composed, the animals from which it was taken, and the manner in which it was prepared, we can never learn now. Every kind of sinew, or hair or rope, with which I have experimented, either breaks or loses its elasticity in a comparatively short time, if great pressure is applied. It has then to be renewed at no small outlay of expense and trouble. Rope skeins, with which we are obliged to fit our models, cannot possibly equal in strength, and above all in elasticity, skeins of animal sinew or even of hair. The formation of the arm or arms of an engine, whether it is a catapult with its single upright arm or a balista with its pair of lateral ones, is another difiiculty which cannot now be overcome, for we have no idea how these arms were made to sustain the great strain they had to endure. We know that the arm of a large engine was composed of several spars of wood and lengths of thick sinew fitted longitudinally, and then bound round with broad strips of raw hide which would afterwards set nearly as hard and tight as a sheath of metal. We know this, but we do not know the secret of making a light and flexible arm of sufficient strength to bear such a strain as was formerly applied to it in a catapult or a balista. Certainly, by shaping an arm of great thickness we can produce one that will not fracture, but substance implies weight, and undue weight prevents the arm from acting with the speed requisite to cast its projectile with good effect. A heavy and ponderous arm of solid wood cannot, of course, rival in lightness and effectiveness a composite one of wood, sinew and hide. The former is necessarily inert and slow in its action of slinging a stone, while the latter would, in comparison, be as quick and lively as a steel spring. When the art of producing the perfected machines of the Greeks was lost, they were replaced by less effective contrivances. If the knowledge of constructing the great catapult of the ancients in its original perfection had been retained, such a clumsy engine as the mediseval trebuchet would never have gained popularity. The trebuchet derived its power from the gravity of an immense weight at one end of its pivoted arm tipping up the other end, to which a sling was attached for throwing a stone. As regards range, there could be no comparison between the efficiency of a 8 INTRODUCTORY NOTES of an trebuchet, however large, as worked merely by a counterpoise, and that coil tightly twisted engine deriving its power from the elasticity of an immense of sinew.

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